Four on the Aisle

Candace Cameron Starts Summer with a Wedding; Ditto Bonnie Blair

LIKE MOST women, Candace Cameron was determined to look svelte when she walked down the aisle. So a few months ago, the Full House star stepped up her workouts at the gym. She was, after all, marrying Valerí Bure, the well-conditioned winger with the Montreal Canadiens hockey team. Better she should have eased off. When it came time to toss her bouquet, Cameron launched it into a glass chandelier high over the main reception room of the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, Calif. "It never came down," says Cameron.

Neither did the spirits of those who turned out. "It's really great," said Scott Weinger, Cameron's Full House beau, who attended her June 22 ceremony at the Church of the Valle in Van Nuys, Calif., along with John Stamos, Dave Coulier and other costars in the series, which ended its eight-year run on ABC last year. "I'm very happy for Candace. She's been dating Valerí for a while, and I had a feeling about this."

Cameron, 20, wore a white silk wedding gown by St. Pucci, with a butterfly-shaped bow in back and an eight-foot train. (Her Russian-born groom, 22, whom she met when he visited the set in 1994, came in Versace—from underwear to cuff links.) "I was trying so hard not to cry," says the bride, who kissed her new husband, then marched from the church to traditional wedding music. Later, at the Sherwood Country Club, they were toasted by 140 guests—including the groom's grandmother Zina, who made her first trip out of Russia for the occasion. "I'm proud of Candace," says Stamos. "Her head is together. Her whole life is together. She should be a poster child for kid stars."

While Candace was getting into shape for the event, so was her father, Robert, 52, a gym teacher, who took three months of ballroom dancing lessons for the occasion. At the reception he stole the spotlight by ripping off his tuxedo shirt and collar to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned with a photo of the bride and bridegroom. Recalls Candace's mother, Barbara Cameron, 46, who owns a talent agency: "It was special."

Skater Bonnie Blair takes a slow—but satisfying—route to matrimony

Bonnie Blair may be the fastest woman on ice, but on terra firma she likes to take her time. Blair, 32, and her fellow speed skater David Cruikshank, 27, dated for six years before finally deciding to marry; prior to that, the couple had been pals for four.

"It was one of those relationships that got closer the more time we spent together," says Blair. "We've been training together for many years." Olympic gold-medal speed skater Dan Jansen, 31, a longtime teammate who was also at the wedding, sees this as a plus. "They were friends first," he says. "That's what counts."

Is Cruikshank ever intimidated by the world's speediest woman skater? No way, he says: "We started dating before the Bonnie that the rest of the world knows developed."

On their wedding day the bride and groom chose not to see each other until the ceremony. "It makes a bigger impact," says Blair, who walked down the aisle dressed in an ivory silk gown with beaded rose petals at the shoulders. Afterward the Blair Gang (as they were known at Olympic competitions—three sisters, two brothers and their widowed mother, Eleanor, 77) plus 300 other guests joined the newly wedded couple for dinner.

When a guest joked that Blair's wedding was a breeze compared with the bride's fierce competitions at the '94 Winter Games in Lillehammer, the skater laughed, then added sagely, "Yeah, but this is a long-distance run, not a sprint."